Infrastructure Sharing between Utility and ICT Sectors to Develop National Broadband Access

While the continuing investment of telecommunications industry over the years in automation, digitization and broadband fixed and mobile access, the industry has now come to an important milestone in its history because now the time has come for the industry to migrate from copper-based into fiber-based networks without any other sustainable choice and even without any extra time. However not all the telecommunication companies and operators (telcos) can tolerate the huge cost of such a transformational change in their underlying infrastructures. So what should they do? And how they can enter into the world of fiber-based Gbps communication services? Infrastructure sharing paradigms between telcos and utilities is one of the keys to open this door.
As the competition for building fiber optic infrastructure accelerates globally, utilities (especially electrical utilities) are increasingly seen as new potential and powerful players. Utilities across the world have adopted different scenarios to get into the game. Engagement of utilities in fiber infrastructure development can leads to a win-win game for government, national agencies, the utilities themselves, telecom operators and last but not least, the citizens who are thirsty about digital world and ICT connectivity. From one side, this new business has some advantages for utilities in fiber development, leading to accelerated fiber deployment and less relying on governmental budgets for network expansion. Also they benefit by the diversification of their revenue streams and enhancement of their core businesses. From the other side, telecom operators would be able to reach to unprofitable customers especially in underserved areas where investment for them as a single business aren’t reasonable. In this article, we detail how utilities position themselves for national fiber development, and how they can be engaged. For this, we discuss about global experiences, different business model scenarios, and Iran perspective in infrastructure sharing models.